Assignment 2-3: Distortion Of Results By Human Expectation

2-3: Distortion of Results By Human Expectation

Human expectation is often a good thing. It’s what makes us work hard and strive for success. In psychology human expectation can be harmful though, for both the observer and the subject(s). Human expectation can often distort the results of scientific research. Human expectation can come from the observer in which they unknowingly influence the subject(s) due to their expectation on results. This means that instead of the subject(s) response to something being truthful or genuine, their response will be aimed towards fulfilling the expectations of their observer. Subject(s) too can have human expectations. Some subject(s) already have a preconceived notion about something, for example a medication, and in response they behave in the way the expect the medication to make them feel. This in turn gives the
This means that the observer or subject(s) aren’t informed about particular details that could cause them to have expectations that could be biased. If the observer were to be blind about a between-group experiment, the observer wouldn’t know which subjects received a specific treatment. As a result the observer wouldn’t have a foundation for any expectations for one group of subjects to behave differently from another. If the observer and the subjects are both blinded, known as a double blind-experiment, neither the observer nor the patient know specifics of the experiment. An example of a double blind experiment is a drug treatment experiment in which some of the subjects are given the actual drug and others are given a placebo. The subjects nor the observer know which who received the actual drug and which received the placebo. Instead of the observed contrast in behavior being influenced by the subjects’ or observers’ expectancies, the contrast being observed is from the drug’s chemical